Last weekend something wonderful happened in the beautiful English village of Betchworth. and yes Betchworth is full of magically pretty homes.

A friend of mine from Drama School days (quite a while ago), Ros, (who is already a Gold Donor – see the Donor section to your left), thought up a glorious fund raising idea for our schools and our children in the Cambodian villages.

Ros brought the multi award winning actor Aidan Dooley

http://www.tomcreanshow.com to her village.

This, below, is the remarkable and historic Barn Theatre setting in Betchworth where Aidan performed his show – ‘Tom Crean – Antarctic Explorer’.

Photos from Aidans show:-

Aidan has won awards and accolades from all over the world for this show (he also wrote the show)… Awards include – London Critics, Adelaide Fringe, New York Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe and more!

And all this was and is for our schools and children in the Kamchay Mear District of PreyVeng Province, in Eastern Cambodia.

The audience was almost entirely villagers of Betchworth. We received their money today in Cambodia. They know we will spend 100% of it in the villages with zero Pounds or Dollars going to administration.

If you re-check the Donors page, Betchworth Village itself is now listed as a Gold Donor as are Ros and Ken Rokison.

If this is your first time to our schools site – this is the Blog where new notes, stories and photos are added. Later they will find their way into one or more of the sections in the index to your left. Please enjoy browsing and hopefully reach the Donate section linked to Paypal. Money goes to The Rotary Club of Club and 100% comes to our villages.

If you look at the post immediately above dated November 26 you’ll see that the World Health Organisation organised immunisations for all our children and that a Clean Water charity helped us a lot with bio-filters. In todays post you can see three rubber rubbish bins donated by ‘Visionfund’

Visionfund is actually a Micro-finance business so we are as it were carrying their advert to their target audience – villages, but Micro-finance is mostly a good thing in Cambodia…. and we get rubbish bins. Now I have to buy some more for the Antibes School!

As with many things we do its one step at a time. The bins are empty. Neither the teachers nor the children have got any habit of ‘rubbish in bins’ – I will teach the teachers by example mostly.

We have fresh paint on all wooden parts of the Antibes school in the village of Prey t’Baing – as good as new eh? That’s me behind some happy students. and with Chanthou our Cambodian organiser.

You can see from this photo that we removed all the windows – throughout the school. Security was basically thin wooden dowel. We are going to buy and install a complete set of new secure windows throughout. and here is Chanthou handing over the money for the new windows. I will accompany the staff to help choose what is needed. We photograph all work and all receipts.. The work should be completed before New Year.

There is a photo in the November 26 Blog of the concrete bio-sand filter drying. Here is Mab drinking pure filtered water in her school.

December and more so January are dry months and temperatures in the early hours can drop to 15C or 17C.. The villages for the rest of the year get a night time temperature in the high 20s …. so right now early mornings feel chilly by comparison.

We did this once before and its VERY popular.

I brought from Australia 20kg of woolen hats and jumpers… and here they are

enjoy these photos.

Mums rummaging through the contents of my bag.. this could be anywhere in the world heh?‘I’ll try it on shall I’? ‘Does it suit me’?

Bit loves her hat! Bit and Da. There are dozens of photos of these two throughout the website and the first two girls on the left of the website banner at the very top of the website!

Lots of hats and two jumpers.

Mums and grandmas didn’t miss out. This is Tra, mother of Chanthay (the third from the left in the banner photo at the very top of the website)

and Bits granma doesn’t miss out and the lady in white is Chanthee – who does all the cooking when we have overseas visitors.

and last but certainly not least today there is Peery, Nangs daughter. I gave Nang away at her wedding and care for her medically. Peery is her daughter. In this photo Peery is either saying, ‘you have got to be kidding’! or ‘…. err…. John, wheres mine’?

and here it is, her new hat and jumper.

Thanks so much to some very hard working knitting ladies in Queensland Australia.

Peery’s mother Nang is on the right. A great many people ask about Nang (there is an entire section on Nang in the index to your left).. This time last year Nang weighed 26kg… today she weighs 46kg. I still buy her Mestinon for her Myesthenia Gravis. She is very much the initial inspiration for our Clinic.